BOBBY McEwan has not so much thrown the baby out with the bathwater, as demolished the entire bathroom in a close-season Hull Stingrays team revamp.
The club's owner has retained just two of last season's 11 imports and that's new rookie coach Omar Pacha and side-kick Carl Lauzon, who replace Sylvain Cloutier.
And only four of the club's British contingent have survived the cull.
In has come a raft of new signings, who've never played in Britain and few have actually heard of.
It's a brave move. Whether it will prove brilliant, bonkers or somewhere in between, only time will tell.
For McEwan, now in his third season in charge at the Rapid Solicitors Hull Stingrays, the spring-clean was a "no-brainer" – despite the club's most successful Elite League season ever.
He insists, though, the moves have not been made on a whim.
Nor are they the result of behind-the-scenes unrest, which saw some former players take to social media to voice their discontent, and McEwan fight off a rival bid to take over the club in April.
"I want fans to see some success," said the Glasgow-born 54-year-old.
"I would like to see something that resembles a decent team.
"Last year we had a chance, but I wasn't happy with the way we finished the season.
"I'd love to see us bring success to the city and it's refreshing to see what the new side will look like.
"However, I'm aware a team might look great on paper, but until you put it on the ice and see it you don't know for certain how it will develop."
With Thursday's signing of Canadian defenceman CJ Chartrain, there is just one import slot to fill.
McEwan remains tight-lipped on the player's identity, saying only it will be an experienced defenceman, to be announced in the next fortnight.
Once again, it is likely to be a player few have heard of.
"CJ was one of our original targets, but his signing was one of those that was dragged out a bit," said McEwan.
"We thought we had him, then we didn't, then we had and we got the signing done at 2am on Thursday.
"One more defenceman and that should be us done."
While eyebrows have been raised round the Elite League at the upheaval, there's undoubtedly been a logical thought process at work.
"Right at the beginning, we said we wanted to take the club in a different direction," said McEwan, a former Hull player himself.
"For the last five years we'd played the same way with the same hard-core of players.
"We'd been eighth, ninth or 10th, so I thought what have we to lose really?
"People are saying we're a very young team, but we've got Omar and Lauz at 27, Dominic Osman at 32, David Brown at 29, so we've still got a lot of experienced guys in there.
"CJ is 24 and played four years at Niagara in the NCAA and a year's pro with Toledo in the ECHL, which is a good league.
"The strength in depth of the team pleases me. For our third line we'll have two guys up front who can score goals, not two who look like fish out of water being switched from defence to play up front.
"We've got two stay-at-home D and two offensive D, plus Jamie Chilcott, and Scott Robson and we'll develop and work with Tom Ralph."
The undeniable "miss" will be the departure of Jereme Tendler and Guillaume Doucet, who racked up over 100 goals between them.
It leaves a big hole to fill, but McEwan feels the team was over-reliant on the pair last season.
"People have said we'll miss their input of goals, given the fact we probably scored more than we've ever done," he added. "However, we probably conceded the most too.
"Instead of having two scoring 50 each we want four scoring 25, we want it to be a team effort rather than two guys."
And McEwan is happy if Stingrays have players keen to use the club as a platform to move on to bigger and better things – just like Doucet, who will play in Denmark this season.
"Every player we have picked has to fulfil a specific role on the team, it's like a big jigsaw puzzle," he said.
"We're not just thinking 'this guy has a great resume we must have him, now where do we play him?'
"Omar has told them they'll be playing 60 minutes, powerplay, penalty killing, everything.
"I've said to Omar I don't want to hear about us being a low-budget team, that's a mindset and an excuse.
"If we get a revolving door of players I'm not worried about that, we can go and find other guys.
"I don't mind us being a stepping stone, because if players move on to bigger things it'll mean they've been a big success for us."
